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aon OF Pais ii | 






oh, / 


The hy 2 esical bt en: wy 
Credibility 
of the 


Virgin Birth 


By / 
Orville E. Crain | 


The Abingdon Press 


New York Cincinnati 


Copyright, 1925, by 
ORVILLE E. CRAIN 


All rights reserved, including that of translation into 
foreign languages, including the Scandinavian 


Printed in the United States of America 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 


I. 


II. 


Hil. 


IV. 


VI. 


Vil. 


Tue History OF THE QUESTION 


Tue Tests For HistroricaL CREpI- 
BILITY 


Tue SouRCcES FOR THE WITNESSES OF 
THm VirnGIn BimnTtH .. . . 2... 
(a). Matthew’s Gospel. (b). Luke’s 

Gospel 


Tue Criticism or THESE SOURCES 
1. Manuscripts. 2. The Versions. 
3. Internal Evidence and Originality 
of the Two Gospels. 4. The Argu- 
ment of the New Testament Silence. 


THE AGREEMENT OF THE WITNESSES 
(a) The Major Agreements. (b) The 
Historicity of Related Events. (c) The 
Genealogies. 


THE “INFLUENCE THEORIES.” 
(a) The “Old Testament atone 
Theory.’ (b) The “Jewish Influence 
Theory.” (c) The “Heathen Influence 
Theory.” 


THE SECONDARY WITNESSES 


VIII. Tae Worts or tae IremM To THE 


CHURCH 


36 


ol 


59 


71 


77 


DAT: 


A aa 


brah ¢ AY vt 
ia eats . 


tue 





I 
THE HISTORY OF THE QUESTION 


THE opposition directed against the 
virgin birth of Jesus is almost coextensive 
with the preaching of the gospel itself. 
Celsus (178 A. D.) opens his polemic 
against the Christians by referring to the 
taunts which the early Jews flung at 
them, and the first reproach of which he 
makes capital is that Jesus whom they 
worship was not born of a virgin but was 
the son of a nameless father. From that 
time of hostility, evidenced by the Jews 
and the vitriolic pen of Celsus, the super- 
natural conception of Jesus has suffered 
intermittent criticisms which have varied 
in degrees of scope and intensity. 

In a rough classification, the primary 
group to deny the claim that Jesus was 
supernaturally conceived embraces those 
writers who for the most part were out 
of sympathy with all forms of “revealed 

5 


6 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


religion” and denounced the whole body 
of Christianity in particular. Within 
this group of radicals might be placed 
Celsus, Reimarus, Renan, Strauss, Vol- 
taire, Haeckel, and others—men who dif- 
fered in time, temperament, and to some 
extent in philosophical aptitude and 
scholarly attainments, but who commonly 
agreed in their scathing condemnation 
of all supernatural claims for Jesus 
Christ. Their denial of his miraculous 
conception would, of course, be neces- 
sarily incidental to their Meee: of 
his life as a whole. 

A second group which denies this item 
of the Christian creed is a class of schol- 
ars who are more or less in sympathy with 
the practical claims of Christianity. 
However, a marked tendency to rational- 
ism causes them to uniformly ignore, as 
much as possible, the miraculous elements 
of the Scriptures. Whenever these par- 
ticular features cannot be so evaded, it 
is the policy of this second group either 
to cunningly explain away the historicity 
of supernatural assertions or to invali- 
date the texts which declare them. It is 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 7 


possible with this method of “rigor and 
vigor” to subvert all Scripture to any and 
all prejudices for personal faith or con- 
duct, and the multiplied and ofttimes 
grotesque variety of “theories” proposed 
as solutions of miraculous gospel narra- 
tives taxes our sense of faith and intellect 
more than the acceptance of the scrip- 
tural story itself. 

Important in this group, and represent- 
ing this school in their many and diver- 
gent theories, it is pertinent to name 
Paulus, De Wette, Schmiedel, and Keim. 
Of course others akin to these can be 
named, and likewise some more modern 
than they, but there is little new in meth- 
od or in data that the later writers of 
this school have produced to date. The 
writers named cover for the most part 
the various theories directed against the 
historical credibility of the virgin birth. 
Paulus explains it away on the assump- 
tion that Jesus’ conception was but the 
result of a self-conscious reaction due to 
the deception of Mary by her cousin 
Elisabeth. De Wette dismisses the nativy- 
ity stories of the Christ-child by assert- 


8 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


ing that the authors of these claims 
merely attempted to portray an Oriental 
symbol. Schmiedel represents the “Influ- 
ence Theory” group, who assert that the 
virgin birth records are but the result of 
“external influence’ upon the minds of 
the early authors of the Gospels that 
record them. These “Influence Theories” 
vary with their authors, and severally 
assert that the thought and story of the 
miraculous birth is directly traceable to 
“Old Testament Influence,” the “Heathen 
Influence,” and “Jewish Influence.” The 
supporters of these several theories agree 
only in this—they bitterly condemn the 
supernatural conception of Jesus, and 
they as bitterly rail against each other’s 
explanation of the gospel’s claim for 
it. Keim sponsors the group that pro- 
pose that someone has corrupted the orig- 
inal texts of the Gospels which contain 
the Nativity chapters, and, if we will 
critically deal with these texts, the claim 
for the virgin birth will be easily and 
scholarly disposed of. Thus runs the line 
of theories put forth by the group of 
rationalists of yesterday and to-day. A 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 9 


perusal of their writings indicates that 
they surely quarrel with each other in 
their hypotheses concerning the virgin 
birth, and only agree in declaring it with- ~ 
out foundation of fact. 

As a general rule, the early writers who 
criticized the virgin birth considered it 
only with the attention equal to that 
which they bestowed upon the other com- 
mon items incidental to a “Life of Jesus.” 
Very little importance of an intense or 
critical sort was given this item apart 
from the other miraculous events in 
Jesus’ career. However, in the later 
period of theological criticism the virgin 
birth of Jesus has, like other features of 
his life, assumed an enlarged and separate 
importance. The subject has been deemed 
so large and engaging that numerous 
scholars have produced many pamphlets 
and books to maintain various theses 
opposing the virgin birth. 

There is a third group of scholars who 
are within the church and accept the 
evangelical doctrines of the Christian 
faith, but are opposed to the acceptance 
of the virgin birth of Jesus. Most of these 


10 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


writers are sincere in conviction and 
study. Many of them manifest a deep 
interest in the Christian faith, and zeal- 
ously assert their loyalty to the practical 
claims of the Christian religion. They do 
contend, however, that the claim for the | 
supernatural conception of Jesus is not / 
supported by any trustworthy evidence. 
They contend that, whether the miracu- 
lous claim be either real or fancied, it 
makes no essential difference in the per- 
son of Jesus or his place as the Christ. 
They argue that this item of Christian 
creed makes for no doctrinal contribu- 
tion or measure of worth to the church. 
It is their general contention also that 
the complete cancellation of this article 
from our Christian creed would do no vio- 
lence to historic facts or authentic 
scripture, but, on the other hand, would 
so purge our gospel that it would make a 
stronger appeal to the thought of our day. 

These repeated attacks upon the virgin 
birth have from time to time drawn forth 
its staunch defenders. Beginning with 
Aristides (136-161), including the Church 
Fathers, and continuing to Tholuck, these 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 11 


apologists were ever alert to champion 
the claim of the supernatural conception 
of the Christ. Many conservative critics 
of later date brought all of their abilities 
of scholarship to the defense of this par- 
ticular article of their creed. The nar- 
rower group of apologists strove not only 
to maintain the credibility of the virgin 
birth of Christ, but with an equal zeal 
they asserted that the doctrines of his 
incarnation and sinlessness were wholly 
wrapped up in the contention. These 
defense theses generally insinuate quite 
strongly that the opposition directed 
against the virgin birth is primarily an 
attempt to undermine the whole tradi- 
tional conception of the inspiration of 
Scripture and the divine nature of Jesus 
Christ. Such writers declare that the 
denunciation of the virgin birth is but a 
denunciation of the virgin life of our 
Lord, and that such assaults are to be 
countered with scholarly perception and 
power. Chief among such writers was 
Professor James Orr, and in his abilities 
and stand he was no doubt the leader of 
his peers. Another wing of conservative 


12 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


scholars, of whom L. M. Sweet is an 
example, labored to present effective 
argument for the credibility of the super- 
natural conception as a fact, but the issue 
that doctrinal features depended upon it 
was not forced. 

It is difficult to say just to what extent 
the radical attacks upon the virgin birth 
have altered the mind of the church con- 
cerning it. No doubt it did less in that 
direction than both liberal and conserv- 
ative expected. The Christian Church is 
rather conservative; and conservatism of 
any sort is difficult to penetrate. Prac- 
tically the whole Christian Church from 
its beginning, with but few exceptions, 
had a common faith in the supernatural 
conception of its Christ, and always 
accepted the integrity of the Gospels that 
declared it. This age-long preponderance 
of belief, born of gospel record and teach- 
ing of the church, was not seriously 
affected by the critics whose academic 
theses seldom filtered down to any great 
portion of believers within the church. 
However, that portion of the church 
which was touched, either directly or 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 13 


indirectly, by the negative theories, was 
affected in various ways. Without doubt 
those of liberal tendency found comfort 
in the negations which explained away 
the miraculous claim of Jesus’ birth by 
dissolving it as fictitious. Many others, 
however, who were of simple faith and 
devout mind suffered the loss of both 
because of the aspersions cast upon the 
Gospels and the claim made for their 
Lord. 

It is evident that a great portion of the 
Christian Church to-day is aware that the 
question as to the credibility of the virgin 
birth is one on which there is a decided 
division of opinion. The so-called Fun- 
damentalist and Modernist controversy 
has, either consciously or unconsciously, 
placed the virgin birth in the light of a 
test case for orthodoxy in the Christian 
Church. Because this particular item 
has been so centered upon, multitudes 
are hearing pronouncements which affirm 
or deny the ground upon which our faith 
in the virgin birth may or may not stand. 
As a matter of fact, many persons who 
stand outside the circles and communions 


14 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


where these theological discussions are 
fiercest are nevertheless so constantly 
coming in contact with abbreviated re- 
marks and garbled assertions concerning 
the virgin birth that they know not who 
to follow nor what to believe. 

Do we have any grounds for faith in the 
virgin birth? Does it matter whether 
the claim for it be true or not? Is the 
item of any worth to the church? Shall 
the Scriptures which allude to it be 
doubted, and the article of the Creed be 
omitted or repeated with mental reserva- 
tions? As a pastor, teacher, and Chris- 
tian, can I “give a reason for the faith 
that is in me” about this particular ques- 
tion? 

The purpose of these little chapters is 
to sum up in brief compass a review of 
the best that has been said on the theme 
by those who have given the subject 
exhaustive criticism and study. There 
is no conscious attempt to contribute 
argument to either the Fundamental- 
ists or Modernists as such, for the ex- 
tremists in both groups will disagree 
with the thesis presented. The sincere 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 15 


aim is to show that faith in the virgin 
birth of Christ is not necessarily empty, 
‘but that it can be sincerely held by 
thoughtful minds of to-day. 


16 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


Il 


THE TESTS FOR HISTORICAL 
CREDIBILITY 


THE consensus of Christian scholar- 
ship provides but two essential and ade- 
quate tests whereby to judge the validity 
of the claim for any reputed miraculous 
event. The first test is this:. Is the 
alleged miracle worthy of an especial act 
of God? This point implies that God 
can and does act in special ways, and that 
he will be regulated in such activities 
only by moral occasion, and never be 
limited by impotency. 

The rationalists who stand outside the 
pale of theistic philosophy will, of course, 
protest that the reference to a “special 
act of God” implies an unwarranted 
assumption. These thinkers, however, 
can scarcely be counted as Christian 
scholars, especially from the standpoint 
of their philosophic attitude. Most of 


4 





THE VIRGIN BIRTH 17 


these men, if they see God at all, seldom 
conceive him as transcending the world of 
nature, and never see him revealing him- 
self in the life and history of man. It is, 
more or less, from this basis of philosophy 
that many of the critics of the virgin birth 
have written, and, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, all other legitimate tests for the 
case have ofttimes been subverted to the 
rationalistic bias. 

The Christian thinker believes in the 
free working personality of God. He has 
made the world for his divine purpose, 
and, both to reveal and achieve that pur- 
pose, he is considered to be morally free 
to act whenever and wherever he may 
s0 choose. He is expected to operate in 
what we in our experience contrast as 
ordinary and extraordinary modes of ac- 
tion—in the world of nature, in the realm 
of life, and on the plane of human history 
—to the end that his high purpose be 
accomplished. 

The claim that especial activities of 
God in these ways picture him as being in 
conflict with the so-called “natural law” 
does not disturb our thought. “Natural 


18 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


law” is but the embodiment of the world 
order as we may have happened to observe 
it, and its content varies more or less with 
human progress and _ scientific study. 
Thus the study of the world-order has 
placed some of the “supernatural phe- 
nomena” of the past into the category of 
mere “natural law” of to-day. However, 
it is not to be feared that the progressive 
scientific study of the world order will, 
in time, dissolve all of the supernatural 
elements of the Christian religion into the 
natural order. The very contrary is true. 

Scientists are now showing us that 
even in the world of “natural law” there 
are certain common laws, which if dealt 
with in a fashion that nature of itself 
does not do, can be made to produce 
“supernatural” results that in a certain 
manner are analogous to the virgin birth 
and resurrection of our Lord. But the 
miraculous features related to Jesus are 
not the product of “natural law,” nor are 
they contrary to or limited by it; they 
are the result of God personally relating 
these laws to each other. The supernatu- 
ralism really consists in the power of the 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 19 


Divine to control the laws of his natural 
world to secure his mms. 

As an illustration to clarify the fore- 
going paragraphs, let us consider the 
“parthenogenetic. theory’ which some 
writers have employed to support the 
claim for the virgin birth of Christ. This 
theory merely means that there is such a 
fact as “pure virgin production” of life. 
For many years the idea that ovum could 
be developed without paternal fertiliza- 
tion was not considered within the realm 
of “natural law,” and any assertion to the 
contrary was treated with contempt. 
However, we know to-day that this idea 
has a proven basis in fact. In the natural 
order, generations of aphids are produced 
independent of male fertilization, as are 
certain species of crustaceans. 

This law is likewise subject to artificial 
manipulation. Scientists, by certain de- 
grees of light and shade, succeeded in 
growing silk worms that produced cat- 
erpillars without any male contact. 
Jacques Loeb, by a certain parthenoge- 
netic method, produced frogs that lived 
and grew normally for over one year. 


20 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


The reference to this law in nature and 
the further results made possible by per- 
sonal manipulations of it suggest to our 
mind that the content of so-called “natu- 
ral law” is not static; and that in par- 
ticular there are in the natural world cer- 
tain laws that make for virgin birth, and, 
under personal control, these laws can 
cause virgin birth in higher forms of life 
than does nature, of itself, perform. 
Another point is this: when Loeb, for 
instance, produced the frogs without the 
male factors being involved as nature 
always involved them, we are not to sup- 
pose that Loeb did anything in the man- 
ner of “suspending” or “canceling” natu- 
ral law; he only permitted some laws to 
supersede and counteract others. His act 
was comparatively “supernatural,” not 
that he worked contrary to natural law, 
but that he employed a certain relation of 
natural laws beyond the confines of com- 
mon experience. If, by the human will 
and action, one force can be made to 
supersede another, and one law to coun- 
teract another, so that an effect, if not 
miraculous, at least essentially is a 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 21 


change in nature and through it, how 
much more is the God of all nature both 
free and able to do the same in the reali- 
zation of his great purpose in the higher 
realms of life! 

It is not only congenial to believe that 
the supernatural conception of Jesus 
could be possible with God, but it is like- 
wise affirmed that such an especial act 
would be worthy of him as well. Some 
critics assert that it places God in a sorry 
light to be conceived of as working a mir- 
acle on such a physical plane in order to 
secure such a spiritual end. The divine 
worth of the miracle is not minimized by 
this stricture. The theory of divine 
immanence declares that between the 
spiritual realm and the physical plane 
there is no impassable gulf fixed. In his 
transcendent prerogatives God is sup- 
posed to use physical instruments to 
accomplish his ends. This does not imply 
a necessary limitation in mode of action, 
but it does assume that God does not dis- 
dain to direct physical forms and func- 
tions to the purpose of spiritual goals. 
The incarnation of Jesus is a miracle 


22 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


somewhere on a physical plane. The very 
uniqueness of Jesus in the peculiar unity 
of body and spirit cannot be explained by 
any other method. Most all critics admit 
that Jesus was at least a historical char- 
acter. None except a few Gnostics ever 
questioned that he possessed the physical 
organization which we call the body, sub- 
ject like ours to the same laws. But 
Jesus had more than body; in union with 
it he had those psychical qualities of 
mind and spirit which we call his per- 
sonality. He had these to a remarkable 
degree, as the Scriptures represent and 
most students concede. In alluding to 
Jesus we, then, must bear in mind that 
the totality of his person is involved. 
The essential feature of the incarnation 
of Jesus is that God supremely touches 
the plane of physical life with divine 
power. Some contend that the nature of 
Jesus is essentially the same as ours in 
point of substance, but differs from ours 
in the degree of achievement. Others 
hold the view that the nature of Jesus 
was essentially different from ours in that 
we are but human and he was divine. No 


\ 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 23 


matter how these rival schools might 
quarrel about the particular nature of 
Jesus, they more or less agree in naming 
him as the outstanding Person of the ages. 
Based upon this uniform and practical 
testimony, it is conceivable that if Jesus 
alone, in relation to all the rest of human- 
ity, occupies such a preeminence of place, 
he must likewise stand in some propor: 
tionate unique relation to God. Whether 
we call Jesus human or divine does not 
cancel this practical degree of the preemi- 
nence of his person or his power, for the 
one involves the other. 

_ Science rightly asserts that mankind is 
the masterpiece of God’s creative power. 
In our terms of thinking we assume that 
God put forth special power when he 
endowed mankind with physical excel- 
lence, mental superiority, and spiritual 
aspirations. But this same mankind, 
with its keen mental and spiritual per- 
ception, acclaims Jesus to be the Master- 
Man. To the extent at least to which 
Jesus is so far above and beyond the 
human race can we reason that he is 
supernatural to men as such, and that he 


24 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


is the highest incarnation of the divine 
power. 

All of us thus practically confess that 
Jesus was the “Word that became flesh, 
and dwelt among us.” We may disagree 
as to whether “The Word was God” or 
“merely came from God,” but we must 
agree that in some time and manner the 
divine empowering of Jesus transpired. 
By denying the supernatural conception 
to have been the mode we can postpone 
the time of the incarnation, but we can- 
not escape the fact that such an act as the 
incarnation was both worthy of God and 
was accomplished by working on the phys- 
ical plane. With this in mind, the divine 
activation of the initial cell of the future 
human body of Jesus does not represent 
God as working on any lower physical 
plane than if he should have likewise 
empowered the millioned-celled body of 
Jesus in postnatal days. 

We can accept this miracle as worthy 
of God also because it serves to a spiritual 
end. The virgin birth does furnish many 
minds with a basis upon which to inter- 
pret the doctrines of Jesus’ incarnation 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 25 


and sinlessness. To some others it con- 
tributes nothing to these doctrines. But 
the miracle has value beyond iis possi- 
bility as a conditioning agency for these 
doctrines. It serves as an especial event 
which inaugurates a supernatural life of 
a unique Lord who heralded a new king- | 
dom and led men into it. Any secondary 
manner in which the virgin birth might 
serve to such a spiritual end is worthy of 
an especial act of God. We feel that this 
reputed miracle meets the first test im- 
posed upon it for historical credibility ; 
the event is possible with the God of 
revelation; it is not impugned upon the 
ground that it is a miracle worked upon 
the physical plane, and it proceeds in the 
direction of securing a spiritual purpose. 

The second test to which any alleged 
miracle is subjected is that it be able to 
present adequate and unimpeachable wit- 
nesses for its claim. This is a crucial test 
under which many assertions fail and are 
dismissed from all further sober consid- 
eration. Christian philosophy and an 
allowance for a spiritual worth are favor- 
able toward the virgin birth, but who and 


26 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


what are the witnesses? The only pri- 
mary witnesses which we possess are the 
written narratives found in the opening 
Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The vir- 
tue of written records as witnesses for a 
historic event are ofttimes in question, 
but they, and some secondary effects 
which the alleged event might reflect in 
associated or continued events, are about 
all of the evidence that we have for his- 
tory of any sort. Historical events can 
happen independently of any records con- 
cerning them, and many writings might 
chronicle events as historical when they 
never occurred, but it is also possible that 
many events do occur in history and that 
written record is made of them. 

It is in the last division that we place 
the claim for the virgin birth. The Scrip- 
tures declare it in a definite fashion. To 
many minds this evidence of itself is suf- 
ficient. But a sober and critical evalua- 
tion of any biblical event must be sub- 
mitted to careful scrutiny in order that 
the worth of the text may be proven. 
Even accepted passages are to be inter- 
preted as only true to the purposes for 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 27 


which they were written, and not always 
do they carry substantial evidence as his- 
torical facts. This sometimes applies to 
the commonplace assertions; much more 
must it be required for all alleged super- 
natural events. However, any allusion to 
the Bible involves Jesus Christ. He 
caused the better portion of it to be writ- 
ten, and it is the marvelous power of 
his divine life that makes all of the Scrip- 
ture live. Some one has said, “The Old 
Testament is Jesus foretold; the Gospels 
are Jesus told of; the remaining New 
Testament is Jesus retold.” Some may 
question that the Old Testament writers 
had the real Messianic insight into Jesus’ 
role, but none can deny that Jesus was 
the Person about whom all the New Testa- 
ment centered. 

This outstanding record which so cen- 
ters in Jesus and provides us with our 
chief knowledge of his unparalleled life 
and his subsequent influence upon the 
world, tells us with the purport of his- 
torical fact that Jesus was supernatu- 
rally conceived and born of the Virgin 
Mary. Much study, research, and pa- 


28 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


tience have been devoted to the texts 
which make this declaration concerning 
our Lord, but the item is incapable of 
absolute historical proof or disproof. All 
that scholarship can do is to present evi- 
dence either for or against the grounds 
upon which our faith in the item might 
rest. 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 29 


Ill 


THE SOURCES FOR THE 
WITNESSES OF THE 
VIRGIN BIRTH 


A. Matthew’s Gospel. The early church 
ascribed the authorship of the first 
Gospel to Matthew, a man who, upon 
becoming a disciple of Jesus, assumed. 
“Matthew” as a new name (Luke 5. 20). 
The controversy as to whether we have an 
original copy of his Gospel in the Greek 
manuscripts or merely a translation from 
an earlier Aramaic document has more or 
less inclined to the conclusion that Mat- 
thew wrote the Gospel ascribed to him in 
Greek, and probably used some collection 
of sayings called the “Logia” as a basis 
for some of his Gospel. This seems to be 
the opinion of the early Church Fathers, 
and Papias and Eusebius are directly 
quoted as asserting that Matthew was the 
author of this Gospel which we place first 


30 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


in the New Testament canon. The date 
of the Gospel is somewhat uncertain; 
Harnack, after patient research, places it 
as early as 70 A. D., while Peake makes 
it approximate the year 95 A. D. The 
bulk of scholarship considers the Gospel 
to have been produced about 75 A. D. 

Internal evidence of the Gospel indi- 
cates that the author was a Christian 
Jew, but not a Judaizer. The narrative 
is not written for the delight of author- 
ship; it is not a polemic, but an earnest 
attempt to justify Jesus Christ to the Jews 
as their expected Messiah. Matthew was 
an immediate disciple of Jesus; the Gos- 
pel reveals that he stood very close to the 
events which he describes and that he pos- 
sessed data derived from good sources. 
In all probability Mark’s Gospel, the 
Logia, and trustworthy traditions were 
available to and used by the author when 
he wrote his narrative. 

B. Luke’s Gospel. No literary criti- 
cism has ever been directed against the 
Lukan origin of the third Gospel. It is 
true that some portions of the Gospel 
have been repudiated as “tendency writ- 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 31 


ings” from the Pauline side, but these 
theories are vague and in no manner com- 
promise the Lukan authorship. Likewise 
the “recast theory” of Luke is not re- 
garded with favor by any scholars of note. 
Harnack, with good evidence, places the 
date of this Gospel about 60 A. p., while 
Peake contends that the year 95 A. D. is 
a more favorable date. 

Luke is the most historic and artistic 
of all the Gospels. The prelude to his 
narrative sets forth the reason that he 
had for writing it. He acknowledges that 
others have written concerning the life 
and teachings of Jesus, and that he 
desires to do so in an orderly fashion that 
Theophilus might know of a certainty all 
the things believed by the Christians (in- 
cluding himself) concerning the Christ. 
This prelude would indicate the histo- 
rian’s characteristics. Luke starts with 
the beginning of Jesus’ life, and proceeds 
to give an orderly and coherent account 
of it. He bases his right to trustworthi- 
ness upon the ground that he has the 
words of eyewitnesses and that he him- 
self had a perfect understanding of the 


32 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


various events of Jesus’ life from the 
beginning. That Luke is _ historically 
trustworthy is admitted by able scholars, 
and is proven in detail by the eminent 
research student, Professor Sir William 
Ramsay.’ 

There are several items of importance 
relative to the virgin birth to be found 
in the foregoing remarks. First, the 
early date in which the authors wrote 
their Gospels would provide an ample 
opportunity to know and _ investigate 
all matters at first hand. Secondly, 
the day in which these narratives were 
written was a period of fierce debate and 
criticism concerning the common claims 
of Christianity. Hence the authors would 
of necessity exercise a caution in weigh- 
ing every item of Jesus’ life that they 
touched upon, for they knew that any 
claim, false or fancied on their part, 
would be readily seized upon by compet- 
ing creeds and colder critics to mock the 
Christian faith. 

Nor does the time or spirit of the date 





i Was Jesus Born At Bethlehem? Also read a later study, Bear- 
ings of Recent Discoveries on the Trustworthiness of the New Testa- 
ment, Chapters xi and xviii-xxiii inclusive. 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 33 


of these Gospels’ writing readily favor 
any conditions whereby Jewish influence 
or pagan analogy could have been worked 
into the story of Jesus’ life. The Chris- 
tian Church was despised by the Jews, 
and the most liberal of them who were in 
the Christian way at all were in the sect 
of the Ebionites, and they differed pri- 
marily with the true Christian body on 
the very question of the supernatural con- 
ception of Jesus. Even the pagan critics 
had, before this time, scathingly de 
nounced the mesalliances of their gods, 
and made such stories a subject for jest- 
ing. We further know that the church 
at this time sought with scrupulous care 
to avoid all Judaizing tendencies and 
heathen taint, both in thought and prac- 
tice. 

As to each specific Gospel something 
can be said. Matthew seeks to take the 
objectionable events in Jesus’ life and 
justify them to the “hope of the Jews.” 
He attempts to explain the suffering Mes- 
siah, and show the worth of the hated 
cross by appeals to Jewish prophecy and 
subsequent events. We do not believe 


34 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


that Matthew would then create a story 
so objectionable to the Jews as the vir- 
gin birth and thus assume an extra bur- 
den in his endeavor to win what was, 
even without this item, a hostile position. 
Matthew is only seeking, in his Nativity 
chapters, to do there what he attempts to 
do in all of his narrative—to vindicate 
the Messianic claims of Jesus to the Jews. 
Because of this uniform aim in all of his 
Gospel throughout we are not so easily 
led to believe that the infancy chapters 
are merely some anonymous or fictitious 
prelude tacked to Matthew’s Gospel. 
They are in accordance with the whole 
object of the author’s purpose. 

Luke, as the author of the third Gospel, 
also has a relative importance to the story 
of the virgin birth beyond all of the trust- 
worthiness that the prelude to his narra- 
tive would imply (Luke 1. 1, 4). Luke 
was a physician (Col. 4. 14). To what 
extent he was a man of science might be 
questioned, but it would be sober to say 
that he, at least in line with claims for 
miracles wrought upon the human body, 
would not easily be deceived himself, 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 35 


much Jess attempt to deceive others. 
Luke was also Paul’s traveling compan- 
ion (2 Tim. 4. 11; Philem. 24). We can- 
not expect that these two zealous disciples 
would pursue their long and hazardous 
missionary journeys without conversing 
upon the outstanding characteristics of 
their Master’s life. Many scholars assert 
that Luke was influenced by Paul, and 
that the color of his Gospel is as much 
modified by the great apostle as was 
Mark’s Gospel the product of Peter’s pub- 
lic preaching. The Epistles of Paul make 
no allusion to the birth of Jesus at all, 
and on this ground many affirm that Paul 
did not accept the item. However, if 
Luke’s narrative is a “Pauline gospel,” 
it would appear that Paul probably did 
accept the virgin birth as Luke records it, 
but that Paul had no occasion to refer to 
it in his letters. In view of these several 
facts, we feel that the Nativity chapters 
of Matthew and Luke can be accepted as 
authentic in the main issue involved. 


36 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


IV 
CRITICISM OF THESE SOURCES 


THE opposition to the claim for the 
virgin birth of Jesus passes by the fore- 
going facts with comparative ease by 
denying the credibility of the first and 
third Gospels in the witness they bring. 
A first group does not question the integ- 
rity of the Nativity texts as such but casts 
reflection upon the intelligence and the 
sincerity of the two authors, who, we are 
told, lived in a superstitious age, and were 
not critical toward the complex and leg- 
endary atmosphere of their day. The 
weight of this stricture will be considered 
in a later discussion. 

A second group attacks the credibility 
upon the original integrity of the Natiy- 
ity texts themselves. They hold that the 
infancy chapters of Matthew and Luke 
were not part of the original Gospels in 
which they are found, but that they are 
fanciful preludes invented and attached 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 37 


to the primary Gospels by later writers. 
If either of these two types of contention 
is true, then our witnesses to the histori- 
cal credibility of the supernatural con- 
ception are impeached. But we feel that 
these authors were both sincere, intelli- 
gent, and accurate in the main concern- 
ing the birth of Jesus, and that their 
Nativity chapters were integral parts of 
their primary Gospels. To maintain this 
conviction, let us look to the sources of 
these Gospels, which are the manuscripts 
and the Versions. ) 

1. Manuscripts. First, in the manu- 
scripts of these Gospels which we have 
available to us, all of them, with but two 
exceptions, contain the Nativity chapters 
of Matthew and Luke. Marcion issued an 
edition of Luke about 140 A. pb. and 
omitted the first two chapters. But this 
omission by Marcion was prompted for 
certain reasons. His Gnostic tendency 
did not tolerate the belief that Jesus was 
born at all, much less of a virgin. Such 
opposition would indicate that we could 
not expect to find a virgin birth in Mar- 
cion’s corrupted edition of Luke. 


38 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


The Jewish wing of the Ebionitic 
Christians was scarcely considered as 
within the church because that body chal- 
lenged the divinity of Christ, and con- 
tended for his pure humanity. To them 
the claim of a supernatural conception 
smacked too much of divine incarnation, 
hence their manuscript of Matthew de- 
letes the first two chapters. Outside of 
these two manuscripts, which were cor- 
rupted no doubt for dogmatic reasons, 
all of the manuscripts of Matthew and 
Luke contain the Nativity chapters. 
Ignatius (117) stood close to the days of 
the earliest editions of these Gospels, and 
he refers to their story of the virgin birth 
without any trace of denial. 

2. The Versions. Of all the versions 
now extant only two of them contain eyvi- 
dence which might at first appear to be 
unfavorable to the virgin birth. The first 
of these is a Syriac Version which reads, 
“Jacob begat Joseph; Joseph, to whom 
was betrothed Mary, the virgin, begat 
Jesus who is called the Christ.” Con- 
cerning this text several things might be 
said. The first thing is this: such a state- 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 39 


ment may have been due to the fact that 
repetitions of the word “begat” were used 
so extensively in former verses that the 
writer unconsciously used it here also. 
Again, the verb “begat” in this connec- 
tion is possible of a feminine translation, 
and thus would state that the “begat” 
was an action ascribed to Mary. Some 
scholars affirm that the whole passage in 
question is due to some interpolation by 
some Ebionitic author. Whether these 
several explanations of the verse in this 
version are valid or not, we do not think 
that this Syriac Version by its single sen- 
tence offsets the weight of the many other 
universally accepted versions that declare 
the virgin birth of Jesus. 

The second version which omits the 
supernatural conception is the dubious 
“Gospel of the Hebrews.” This version 
need not demand much consideration, for 
the whele manuscript of it shows so much 
mutilation that it is difficult to accept 
most of its parts as authentic. 

It has been conclusively shown that all 
of the earliest manuscripts and versions 
of Matthew and Luke contain the infancy 


40 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


chapters as they appear in our transla- 
tions of to-day. The only manuscripts 
and versions that fail to do this are those 
manuscripts and versions that seem to be 
corrupted either by Ebionitic or Gnostic 
tendencies. Even these manuscripts and 
versions are few in number and cannot 
be reasonably employed to counteract the 
evidence which the many and uniformly 
accepted manuscripts and versions pre- 
sent for the claim of Jesus’ supernatural 
conception. 

3. Internal Evidence and Originality 
of the Two Gospels. While some admit 
that the Nativity portions of Matthew 
and Luke are parts of the oldest manu- 
scripts and versions, they argue that the 
Nativity chapters of Matthew and Luke 
are not nevertheless original with the re- 
maining portions of the primary docu- 
ments with which they are found. It is 
claimed that there is a lack of unity 
between Matthew’s first two chapters and 
those that follow. It is also contended 
that there is an apparent difference be- 
tween the Nativity chapters of Luke and 
his subsequent chapters. 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 41 


In answer to this point we can say that 
there are apparent breaks between many 
of the chapters in all of the synoptic 
Gospels. Their brief survey and rapid 
movement makes them almost incapable 
of even progress, but the unity thus modi- 
fied is in no manner a compromise of 
their original continuity. The closest 
scrutiny of the infancy chapters in Mat- 
thew and Luke reveals that they compare 
very favorably with the remainder of 
their Gospels. Both Plummer and Har- 
nack say that whoever was the author of 
Luke (3 through 24) and of the Acts was 
also the author of Luke (1 and 2). 

Likewise, evidence for the unity of 
Matthew is quite strong. Matthew has 
a fondness for the phrase, “that it might 
be fulfilled,” and he uses this uniformly 
throughout his Gospel as a prelude to 
some prophetic utterance of the Old Tes- 
tament. - This earmark of Matthew (3 
through 28) likewise is employed five 
times in Matthew (1 and 2). The pecu- 
liar Greek words and phrases so common 
to the Nativity chapters, are also common 
to the remainder of the Gospel. These 


42 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


internal evidences plainly deny that there 
is a double authorship in either of these 
Gospels. 

The attempts to dismiss the claim for 
the virgin birth in Luke by eliminating 
certain verses that assert it have been 
made by Beyschlag, Harnack, and others. 
They say that by omitting Luke (1. 34, 
35) the claim of the virgin birth of Jesus 
will vanish from Luke. By this method 
any and all claims could easily be dis- 
missed. Such an operation would be con- 
trary to the original story as found in all 
the early manuscripts and _ versions. 
Even if these verses were omitted, enough 
of Luke would remain to declare the vir- 
gin birth. After a fair examination of all 
the evidence it appears that the infancy 
portions of Matthew and Luke possess an 
original and textual integrity in keeping 
with the body of their whole Gospels. 

4. The Argument of the “New Testa- 
ment Silence.” The attempt to impugn 
the virgin birth is made on the score that 
only Matthew and Luke record it and 
that the remaining authors of the New 
Testament never allude to it in the faint- 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 43 


est fashion. This argument has but 
slight weight. Matthew and Luke are 
the only authors who give us any account 
of Jesus’ early life; all other New Testa- 
ment writers write their Gospels or 
Epistles within certain confines which do 
not reach into the infancy of Jesus. 
Hence they would not, except by mere 
accident, have reason to refer to his birth 
at all. Various scriptures have been writ- 
ten to serve various purposes (2 Tim. 
3.16) and what might not appear in the 
Epistles in no manner would cancel the 
truth and worth of what is found in the 
Gospels. 

A. The Logia. This is probably the 
oldest record of Jesus’ sayings, but just 
what it was or contained is doubtful. 
Harnack’s reconstruction of this docu- 
ment is only a tentative proposition, and 
he himself asserts, “that the Logia is not 
a biographical narrative, but is essen- 
tially colloquial” in content. Hence the 
questionable construction of the Logia, in 
view of its very purpose, would exclude 
a reference to the birth of Jesus. 

B. Much is made of the silence of Mark 


44 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


because it is supposed to be the oldest 
Gospel that we have. It is both true that 
Mark is our oldest Gospel and that it 
does not mention the birth of Jesus. But 
the silence can be accounted for. First, 
Mark’s prelude, “The beginning of the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” 
implies that no attempt was made to 
begin with an early biography of Jesus, 
but to start a record of Jesus’ preaching 
at the beginning of his ministry. In the 
second place, if Mark’s Gospel was based 
upon the public preaching of Peter, as 
most scholars agree it was, then we would 
expect no record of the virgin birth. 
Peter would not need to allude to it for 
doctrinal purposes, and any unnecessary 
reference to it before an already hostile 
people would possibly prejudice them 
against the reception of the evangelist’s 
bigger message concerning the Christ. 
Mark does refer to Jesus as “the Son of 
God.” The implication of his incarna- 
tion would not, as such, be unfavorable 
to the possibility of his supernatural con- 
ception. 

That Mark has internal evidence con- 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 45 


trary to the virgin birth is not a serious 
charge. In Mark 6. 3 the people are 
represented as asking, “Is this not the 
carpenter, the son of Mary?” ete. This 
reference does not imply the paternity of 
Joseph, but the maternity of Mary. It 
might be asked why Mark does not por- 
tray the people as inquiring, “Is not this 
the son of Joseph?” In ordinary cases 
the authors generally refer to persons in 
family descent upon the paternal side, 
but this is an exception. Whether this 
very idea can be made to allow Mark 
favoring the virgin origin of Jesus or not, 
the fact remains that nothing in the text 
can be used to deny it. Nothing in Mark 
can be quoted as directly affirming or 
denying the virgin birth of Jesus. 

©. John is silent upon this item of 
Jesus’ life also. His silence is probably 
due more to lack of occasion for the men- 
tion of this fact than his ignorance of it. 
Like Mark, John begins his Gospel with 
the ministry of Jesus. “The Word 
became fiesh, and dwelt among us” indi- 
cates that the divine incarnation occurred 
sometime and somewhere. It may be that 


46 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


John’s philosophical turn of mind gave 
no thought to the details of mode and 
manner in this matter. Again, John 
wrote his Gospel after Matthew and Luke 
were current, and John might have not 
deemed it important to repeat what was 
already common to the two existing Gos- 
pels and the tradition of the church. In 
John there is no contradiction of the vir- 
gin birth. 

The claim that John 1. 13 offsets some 
ground for the credibility of Jesus’ super- 
natural conception is not profound. If 
the verb “éyyevy_6noav” is given a singular 
ending, the inference would assert the 
supernatural conception of Jesus. But 
the better reading is prompted by the 
context to make the verb plural. In this 
sense the verse states that those who 
received Jesus became sons of God, and 
were so born as sons, not by the will of 
blood or flesh, but by the will of God. 
The passage has no bearing upon the 
birth of Christ at all. 

John 6. 42 and 7. 5 are also strained 
as testimonials to oppose the virgin birth. 
The first reference pictures the Jews’ sur- 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH AT 


prise at Jesus’ claims of divine relation 
with God, and they inquire, “Is this not 
Jesus, the son of Joseph?” In dealing 
with this text let us bear in mind that 
John is merely quoting what the Jews 
thought, and not his personal convictions. 
In all probability the Jews did not know 
of Jesus’ supernatural conception. We 
are told that “Mary pondered these things 
in her heart,” and with reason we may 
infer that a certain delicacy would pre- 
vent a promiscuous publication of the 
miracle to others. 

The text in John 7. 5 indicates that 
“Jesus’ brethren did not believe on him.” 
Just how this text denies the miraculous 
conception of Jesus we do not know until 
we are informed that Jesus’ brethren 
would have believed on him if they had 
known of his origin being so unique. The 
whole context, however, shows that this 
unbelief was more traceable to a dogmatic 
opposition to Jesus’ Messianic claim than 
to an ignorance of his birth. Jesus did 
not make certain revelations in word or 
deed at this time because he felt that his 
time had not yet come for them (John 


48 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


7. 8). It may be that some restraint of 
this sort was also the policy of the mother. 
If, in view of what has been said, the 
opposition still desires to use the unbe- 
lef of Jesus’ brethren as an argument 
against his virgin birth, we can use John 
2. 3, 5 to show that the mother’s faith 
must have rested upon her knowledge of 
the unique origin of her Son. Even the 
brethren of Jesus did believe on him later 
(Acts 1. 1-14). 

D. From the silence of Paul on this 
item nothing detrimental can be drawn. 
One thing central to the mind and preach- 
ing of Paul was the resurrection of Jesus. 
This would also dominate his Epistles to 
an extensive degree. He must have known 
of the supernatural conception because 
he was in company with Luke. Paul 
wrote his Epistles about 53-61 A. p. If 
the virgin birth was a heresy creeping 
into the church at this time, Paul must 
have known of it, and would most surely 
have denounced it as he did some of the 
other Jewish and heathen items that were 
threatening the church in his day. Yet 
Paul does not make any reference to the 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 49 


virgin birth, much less does he condemn 
it, although he must have known that it 
was an article of acceptance by the Chris- 
tians. We do not feel that the brief time 
which elapsed between the last Epistles 
of Paul and the Gospels of Matthew and 
Luke was ample enough for the incor- 
poration of false stories of Jesus’ mirac- 
ulous conception unless some one would 
have challenged the item. 

Such passages as Rom. 1. 3 and 8&8. 3 
are manipulated to militate against the 
supernatural conception. Galatians 4. 
4 is also enlisted for the same purpose. 
All of these texts are essentially written 
by Paul to show the purpose of Christ’s 
advent into the world. None of them 
expressly or incidentally warrant a denial 
of Jesus’ virgin birth. 

So far we have discovered that the 
only Gospels which are biographical of 
Jesus’ life prior to his baptism are Mat- 
thew and Luke, and these two Gospels 
declare the virgin birth. That these 
Nativity chapters are original portions of 
the primary documents is proven by all 
of the earliest manuscripts and versions 


50 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


that have not been mutilated either by 
the Gnostic or the Ebionite schools. The 
Gospels are early and apostolic. Their 
internal evidence forbids the criticism of 
any double authorship, later interpola- 
tion, and composite origin. 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 51 


NE 


THE AGREEMENT OF THE 
WITNESSES 


THE charge is preferred against the 
Gospels of Matthew and Luke that they 
are not self-consistent and mutually dis- 
agree with each other. It must be 
admitted that it is difficult to make a 
harmony between the Synoptics on any 
event in Jesus’ life. Of necessity this is 
so. The writers wrote what they deemed 
important data, but not in a uniform way. 
No two men who are eye-witnesses to an 
event would, because of their individu- 
ality, stress the same points in the same 
manner. We would not expect a perfect 
agreement between the birth stories in 
Matthew and Luke. Their minor differ- 
ences in the Nativity stories prove very 
favorable to the fundamental element in 
it. If both of the narratives agreed in 
detail, we could readily assert that there 
might have been a mutual conspiracy in 


52 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


recording the supernatural conception. 
If we were too charitable to prefer that 
charge against the authors, we might 
infer that the similarity of the stories was 
but a duplication of the first author by 
the second. This theory would weaken 
the testimony of two witnesses by throw- 
ing all of the claim for proof upon the 
validity of the first. In either case the 
evidence of the miraculous birth would 
be harmed thereby. 

A. The Major Agreements. Full ad- 
mission is made to the fact that Matthew 
and Luke show an absolute independence 
of each other in the composition of their 
Nativity chapters. The differences are 
so marked; yet these differences cannot 
be logically seized upon to impugn the 
central truth which they both declare. 
Independence in statement does not imply 
contradiction in fact. Although the Gos- 
pels of Matthew and Luke differ, they in 
a remarkable way supplement each other. 
This has been clearly shown by Professor 
James Orr.t He reveals that the discrep- 





‘The Virgin Birth, pp. 36-37. Reprinted! by permission of 
Charles Scribner’s Sons. 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH Do 


ancies are but in the minor details of 
their birth stories, and that there are 
major agreements in both Gospels to the 
fundamental fact of the divine birth. 
Following are the mutual points of agree- 
ment which Orr discovered: 


1. Jesus was born in last days of Herod 
—Matt. 2. 1-Luke 1. 5. 

2. Conceived by the Holy Ghost—Maitt. 
1. 18—-Luke 1. 35. 

3. His mother was a virgin—Matt. 1. 
18—-Luke 1. 35. 

4. She was betrothed to Joseph—Matt. 
1, 18—-Luke 1. 27 and 34. 

5. Jesus was born at Bethlehem—Matt. 
2. 1-Luke 2. 4-6. 

6. Joseph of the house and lineage of 
David—Matt. 1. 6 and 20—Luke 1. 27; 2. 4. 

7. Called “Jesus” by divine direction— 
Matt. 1. 21-Luke 1. 31. 

8. Declared to be a Saviour—Matt. 1. 
21-Luke 2. 11. 

9. Joseph knew beforehand of Mary’s 
condition and the cause—Matt. 1. 18-20- 
Luke 2. 5. 

10. Joseph took Mary and responsibil- 
ity for the Child—Matt. 1. 20, 24, 25-Luke 
2. 5. 

11. Annunciation and birth followed 
by signs—Matt. 1. 20-Luke 1. 27-28. 


54 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


12. After the birth of Jesus, Joseph and 
Mary dwell in Nazareth—Matt. 2. 23- 
Luke 2. 39. 


Such are the common and fundamental 
facts in which Professor Orr finds Mat- 
thew and Luke in mutual accord. It is 
also noticeable that when Matthew intro- 
duces subordinate details that Luke 
omits, or vice versa, no serious injury is 
done to the essential harmony of the two 
Gospels. They are independent and yet 
they are complementary. 

B. The Historicity of Related Events. 
The historicity of the events incidentally 
mentioned in the Nativity stories has been 
questioned with the intent to place the 
main affirmation of the virgin birth in a 
weaker position. For instance, many crit- 
ics doubted the fact of any enrollment 
having been made under Cyrenius as Luke 
records (Luke 2. 2). The only evidence 
for this was a debated passage in 
Josephus. This reflection caused Sir 
William Ramsay to devote much study to 
the historicity of events in relation to 
Jesus’ birth, and under the caption, Was 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH DD 


Jesus Born in Bethlehem? he produces 
effective material to show that Luke is 
a very trustworthy historian. Zumpt and 
Holtzman find the cruelty of Herod, 
the astronomical phenomena, and the 
flight to and return from Egypt to be 
features favorably supported by histori- 
cal probability.” 

C. The Genealogies. Passing from 
these matters, we are called upon to give 
some account of the genealogies which 
appear in Matthew and Luke. The oppo- 
sition contends that these genealogies 
contradict each other, and by so much 
they are not trustworthy. It is further 
alleged that if we do accept them, they 
will then deny the virgin birth. With 
the exception of Professor Charles, all 
scholars, even Lobstein, admit the gene- 
alogies to be original with the two Gos- 
pels, although Lobstein thinks that the 
lists of the genealogies existed in earlier 
documents. We must admit that the 
genealogies are proper portions of the 
Nativity chapters; that they do present 





2Edersheim, in Life and Times of Jesus, vol. i, chap. viii, presents 
evidence which favors the historicity of these related events. 


D6 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


some difficulty in the way of explaining 
them, but we do not feel that the claim 
for the virgin birth stands or falls with 
the solution of them. 

We do not feel that the Gospel authors 
saw any contradictions in the genealogies. 
If the genealogies in Matthew taught 
plainly that Jesus was the son of Joseph, 
why did he employ them at all? Matthew 
could not thus save the claim for the 
virgin birth of Jesus by merely inserting 
the last sentence of Matt. 1. 16 if he 
intended to make his genealogy merely 
put Jesus in the way of natural descent 
through Joseph. We do not believe, 
either, that Luke would make a recital of 
the genealogy on Mary’s side and merely 
insert the phrase, ‘as was supposed” 
(Luke 3. 23), to guard his claim that the 
birth of Jesus was not natural. Both 
Matthew and Luke would have possessed 
some sense equal to ours. If they felt that 
the genealogies were contrary to the 
statements they made concerning Jesus’ 
miraculous birth, they would not have 
included them in their Gospels; or else, 
having included them, they would omit 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH DT 


reference to the unique birth of Jesus. 
The best answer of scholars is that these 
genealogies were included, not primarily 
to claim the line of Jesus’ natural descent, 
but to imply some legal and regal aspects 
of Jesus. 

Both evangelists make their genealogies 
those of Joseph in form, yet they only 
agree in having one name in common— 
the name of Matthat in Luke 3. 24 and 
Matt. 1. 15. Matthew, with a Jewish 
turn, makes his genealogy descendant 
from Abraham through David and Solo- 
mon, while the broader-minded Luke 
makes his genealogy ascendant through 
Nathan and back to Adam. We are to 
bear in mind that Matthew writes to pre- 
sent and prove the Messianic claims of 
Jesus to the Jews. He therefore writes 
his genealogy from the standpoint of 
Joseph to show that the legal rights of 
Dayvidic sonship would be resident in 
Jesus. The idea of throne descent would 
also be involved in such a genealogy and 
would add the regal as well as the legal 
aspect to Jesus. 

It is evident that Luke writes his intro- 


58 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


ductory chapters from the side of Mary. 
Liberal and democratic as he was, he 
would have no Jewish concern to attempt 
anything other than a direct descent of 
Jesus. It is held by some scholars, and 
that with tangible evidence, that Luke’s 
genealogy, while in form that of Joseph, 
is in reality one of Mary. It is suggested 
that Mary and Joseph were tribally re 
lated; this was the tradition of the early 
church and is supported by Justin Mar- 
tyr, Tertullian, and others. That both 
genealogies of Matthew and Luke touch 
on one name, and that just two genera- 
tions before Joseph and Mary, would 
allow the warrant that the authors en- 
deavored to show that from the legal side 
of Joseph and the maternal side of Mary 
Jesus had the rights of Jewish sonship 
and succession to the Davidic throne. In 
view of these matters, it is plausible to 
believe, that while the genealogies differ 
in form, yet both are essentially true in 
fact. We think that the strength of this 
explanation of the genealogies is at least 
sufficient to ward off any criticism 
that the critics might draw from them. 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 59 


VI 
THE “INFLUENCE THEORIES” 


IN an earlier chapter it was intimated 
that certain groups of the opposition did 
not give much attention to the credibility 
of the texts of the Nativity chapters of 
Matthew and Luke, because these texts 
were considered to be due merely to the 
play of some “influence” upon the writers 
rather than reports of a fact true to his- 
tory. These “influence” theories are more 
or less common in principle as to the ex- 
planation of why the supernatural con- 
ception of Jesus is incorporated in Mat- 
thew and Luke, but the theories differ in 
detail with various writers. 

A. The Old Testament Influence The- 
ory. “The influence of Old Testament 
prophecy” will be the first of these the- 
ories to be hastily reviewed. This theory 
asserts that the disciples thought Jesus’ 
life was unique and so were forced to 
assign to him a supernatural biography. 


60 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


No material was so fruitful for such an 
eager enterprise as the rich analogies and 
prophecy of the Old Testament. Hence 
to make Jesus supremely great the Gospel 
authors sought out the heroes and prophe- 
cies of a supernatural trend in the Old 
Testament and cast the details of Jesus’ 
life into the miraculous molds thus made 
for him.. 

Using Matthew as an example, the 
theory proceeds as follows: Matthew is 
acquainted with the Old Testament, and 
by it he thinks that he can magnify Jesus. 
In Isa. 7. 14 there is a verse which states 
that “a virgin shall be with child,” ete. 
Another accommodating verse is known 
to be in Micah 5. 2, which refers to 
“Bethlehem not being the least, for out 
of her shall come a Saviour.” Matthew 
is acquainted with these passages, and for 
the sake of illustration he also knows of 
Jer. 31. 15 and Hos. 11. 1, wherein refer- 
ence is made to “Rachael weeping for her 
children,” and God “calling his son out of 
Egypt.” Other passages might be alluded 
to but these are sufficient to show the 
theory under review. 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 61 


Now, we are to suppose that no one 
really knew of the early life of Jesus at 
all. If anyone did know of his early 
years, then Matthew could not have 
asserted miraculous events concerning 
him. So none are supposed to know much 
about Jesus until he was some thirty 
years of age and began the wonderful 
public ministry of healing and teaching. 
The tremendous workings of divine power 
by Jesus begat such an admiration and 
wonder concerning him in Matthew that 
he decided Jesus was surely the Jewish 
Messiah, and as such he must have actu- 
ally filled all of the Messianic predictions. 
Hence Jesus must have been born of a 
virgin; he was unique and prophecy fav- 
ored it. He ought to have been born at 
Bethlehem; so it is made the place of 
Jesus’ birth. Prophecy also said, “Out 
of Egypt I called my son”; so Matthew 
takes the child Jesus to Egypt so he can 
be called back again. The cause for such 
a pilgrimage can be based upon the pas- 
sage relative to “Rachael weeping for her 
children,” and so Herod is made to mas- 
sacre the innocents at Bethlehem. 


62 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


Such a theory has its absurdities on the 
surface. If such a method was the pro- 
cedure of Matthew in framing even a fan- 
cied biography of Jesus’ birth and child- 
hood, why would he choose such difficult 
passages to tally with the events and con- 
ditions of the times? Or, if he desired 
Jesus to fulfill the old Messianic prophe- 
cies of the Jews, why did he not take 
passages from their Scriptures that were 
more congenial to their thinking? It is 
significant that he always takes the events 
that were repugnant to the Jewish mind, 
and seemed to them to be irreconcilable 
with “the One that should come to redeem 
Israel.” If Matthew was not authentic 
in his Nativity chapters, he ran the double 
danger of perverting history that could 
be investigated, and would have further 
driven the Jews from an acceptable hear- 
ing. 

Again, it might be asked, if there were 
no unique events in Jesus’ life—why 
would Matthew consider Jesus to have 
claim at all coincident with his view that 
Jesus was the Messiah? We do not nor 
cannot conceive of the early Christians 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 63 


exercising an unlimited faith in the Christ 
without likewise having some knowledge 
of peculiar facts of his life. It would 
seem better to say that the outstanding 
facts in Jesus’ career begat a virile faith 
in him rather than to suppose that an 
unaceounted for faith created a fictitious 
biography of him. The knowledge of cer- 
tain facts pertaining to Jesus preceded 
the faith that named him the Messiah. 
Nor does it appear possible that such Old 
Testament passages, wrenched from their 
contexts, could present such a framework 
upon which to hang events that flaunted 
historical fact at every turn. The early 
Christians themselves would have consid- 
ered such a story as utterly empty, and 
the critics of that day would have made 
a target out of the history falsely in- 
volved. 

We affirm that Matthew did know the 
Jewish Scriptures. He also recognized 
that the devout Jew treasured the law 
and the prophets. He felt that whatever 
he could support by the one and prove 
by the other would receive some possible 
consideration from the Jews. Matthew 


64 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


knew that Jesus was born of a virgin at 
Bethlehem. He did know that Herod 
sought to slay the child, and that Joseph 
fled to Egypt to escape .Herod’s edict. 
But the Jews were hostile to a virgin 
birth as such. They did not expect any- 
thing great of Bethlehem. For that mat- 
ter, the Jews did not anticipate the mean- 
ing of the cross and other events which 
were related to the real meaning of Mes- 
siahship. Now, Matthew sought to win 
the Jews to a favorable consideration of 
the unique, and seemingly repugnant, 
features in Jesus’ life. Thus, with a 
knowledge of Jesus’ life, he turns to what- 
ever prophecies he can discover in the 
Old Testament, and seeks to prove by 
them (not create, according to them) the 
real Messianic nature of Jesus. He does 
this in order to convince the Jews of the 
truth that Jesus is revealed in their own 
Scriptures. 

Whether Matthew’s exegesis is some- 
times strained in his particular use of the 
Old Testament prophecies is not the issue 
just here and now; the sober facts seem 
to indicate that Matthew used prophecy 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 65 


to free the Jews from the contempt they 
held for the virgin birth rather than make 
it a mold into which he cast a fancied 
origin of Jesus. This theory of the “In- 
fluence of Prophecy” is in principle con- 
tended for by Harnack and Lobstein, but 
is critically opposed by scholars like Un- 
sener, Soltau, and Cheyne, who, of course, 
deny the fact of the virgin birth, but 
ascribe the stories of it to other “influ- 
ences.” 

B. The Jewish Influence Theory. “The 
Jewish Influence Theory” need not detain 
us long. It suggests that the peculiar 
power and personality of Jesus led his 
Jewish disciples, in order to solve his 
nature, to make Jesus parallel, if not 
exceed, the miraculous characters of the 
Old Testament. These worthies were at 
times “overshadowed by the Spirit,” and 
often their birth was associated with 
divine intervention of some sort. All 
that Jesus does is similar in manner but 
greater in degree than the Old Testament 
heroes, therefore Jesus must be the “Son 
of God” in a manner that none of them 
were—he must have been supernaturally 


66 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


conceived. The idea of such a conception, 
so this theory says, was not an idea in- 
compatible with Jewish thinking, and it 
was seized upon to explain Jesus. 

This theory is condemned by Cheyne 
and Schmiedel, who with others say that 
it is empty. The Jewish mind never did 
hold to a strictly virgin birth. True, 
many of their older prophets and heroes 
were called “sons of God,” but this son- 
ship only implied an endowment of divine | 
power, and never excluded natural gen- 
eration. The word “virgin” as it is com- 
monly used in the Old Testament does 
not mean more than “maiden,” and our 
idea of virginity is not involved in its 
usage. It is furthermore noticeable that — 
the Judaizing party of the early church 
rejected the idea of Jesus’ virgin birth 
and the Ebionites and Gnostics mutilated 
all manuscripts and versions that re- 
ferred to it. In the face of these facts we 
can agree with Dahlman, that such a 
Jewish fancy or influence would not over- 
ride the sincerity of the writers of the 
Nativity chapters. 

C. The Heathen Influence Theory. A 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 67 


third theory attacks the story of the 
virgin birth upon the ground that it is 
due to “heathen influence.” Chief among 
this group are Schmiedel and Soltau. 
They tell us that Hellenic thought and 
tradition, heathen theophanies and 
legends had penetrated Jewish life to a 
remarkable degree. In an especial man- 
ner, they say, this complex cultus and 
lore had come upon the Essene branch of 
the Jews wherein Jesus was born, and 
from whom his biography came. It is 
true that many stories of incarnations 
and semidivinities were current, and 
that they had heavy impact in the first 
days of the Christian era. But good 
scholarship questions whether the shel- 
tered and secluded sect in Galilee shared 
to much extent in this fusion of ideas 
which characterized the outside world. 
It has been felt that the theory of the 
heathen influence upon the Essene group 
has been too much strained to gain a 
point. | 

Although marvelous birth stories were 
current in the heathen cults concerning 
their divinities, yet they had begun to lose 


68 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


;, their prestige with the common people 
and paled into fables. Before the Chris- 
tian era such heathen deities were being 
put upon the stage to be laughed at and 
upon the rack to be mocked. Further- 
more, we do not believe that the early 
Christians would incorporate such a 
“divine birth” item into their own creed 
unless it was an immediate fact to the 
life of their Lord. They who died rather 
than make a scant and formal sacrifice 
to the emperor’s god would scarcely per- 
mit such a heathen item falsely to taint 
the Christ in whom they believed. Har- 
nack and Lobstein are hearty in the con- 
demnation of this theory of “heathen in- 
fluence” accounting for the rise of the 
story of Jesus’ unique birth. 

“No direct analogy to Jesus’ supernatu- 
ral conception can be cited out of all the 
vast lore and legends which the opposi- 
tion produces as evidence for their claims. 
After a thorough boiling down and strain- 
ing-out process not a single analogy to 
Jesus’ birth can they find.1| Sweet dis- 





‘The Birth and Infancy of Our Lord. Reprinted by permission 
of the Westminster Press. 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 69 


covers that these distinctions are quiteV 
marked between the heathen wonder 
births and that claimed for Jesus: (a) 
Jesus’ birth was in order to incarnation.. 
(b) Jesus’ virgin birth combines a mirac- 
ulous birth with a pure monotheism; the 
heathen myths do not. (c) Jesus’ mother 
at the time of Jesus’ conception, was a 
virgin, and remained so until after Jesus’ 
birth. 

While the heathen birth stories may 
approximate the claim for Jesus’ birth, 
they do not detract from the claim, nor 
did they cause it to be made. However, 
they may indirectly bear a witness toward 
the credibility of it. The heathen myths 


versal recane| of an incarnation and 
revelation on the part of God. We feel 
that God has answered this universal 
desire in the person of Jesus. Is it too 
much to suppose that in answering that 
universal expectation by sending Christ, 
God might have further considered the 
universal mode through which he was 
expected to come, and made Jesus’ advent 
auspicious by the supernatural birth? 


70 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


This is not asserting that we must think 
that God must have done this because the 
whole world, after certain manners, ex- ° 
pected it, but it is saying that the divine 
regard for the particular thought of the 
human race might actuate God to give 
his supreme Gift in a manner in which 
his children more or less expected it. 

The vast gulf which separates the 
heathen wonder births from that of Jesus’ 
virgin birth is this—the heathen miracle 
births never produced a Christ. If we 
compare the man-gods with the life of 
_ Christ, what,a gulf yawns between them! 
The claims of the heathen narratives are 
undermined by the wretched and sinful 
lives of those for whom divinity in birth 
is asserted. The virgin life of Jesus gives 
a sense of balance to the story of his 
virgin birth. 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 71 


VII 
THE SECONDARY WITNESSES 


THE secondary witnesses to any re- 
corded event are ever to be regarded, for 
no event of any significance can well live 
to itself so as not to touch upon kindred 
events or conditions directly or indirectly 
related to the event in question. It is 
especially true with the witness for the 
historical credibility of the virgin birth. 
We have shown that the testimony of the 
Gospels of Matthew and Luke is worthy 
of trust in the related data which they 
declare concerning Jesus’ birth. We have 
also surveyed the various theories that 
seek to discredit the facts of these au- 
thors’ assertion by ascribing them to fan- 


' eles due to extraneous infiuences. The 


survey showed that all of these critics 
generally quarreled among themselves 
and disagreed with the New Testament 
statement of facts. It is now pertinent to 


72 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


inquire if there be any other witnesses to 
this item of Jesus’ life. 

A. The first secondary witness to the 
credibility of the virgin birth of Christ 
is discovered in the Christian Church 
itself. The early church believed this 
article, as the polemics of Celsus, and the 
Ebionitic and Gnostic attitudes against 
the item suggest. The subapostolic age 
was rich in traditions that for the most 
part were reliable. Even Harnack admits 
that belief in this item was firmly estab- 
lished by the first half of the second cen- 
tury. 

Bb. Another secondary witness to the 
belief in the item is found in the Apostles’ 
Creed or “Rule of Faith.” The exact date 
of this creed varies, Kattenbusch placing 
it as early as 100 A. D., while Harnack 
dates it at 140 a. pb. In either case it was 
early, and the general creed of the early 
church. Of course we know that this rule 
of faith was primarily a summary of the 
things that the apostles were supposed to 
have believed and taught. It was possibly 
more a mutual testimony of belief than 
an implied test of faith for the early 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 73 


Christians. The references to Jesus are 
primarily inserted and worded to ofiset 
the Gnostic tendencies of the day. Most 
of the symbols insist strongly upon the 
human side of Jesus for that reason. 
Critics tell us that the item of Jesus’ 
birth is thus referred to only in order to 
declare for his bodily existence, and not 
to emphasize the supernatural concep- 
tion. We can grant that the Gnostic 
prejudice was guarded by the creed in 
reference to Jesus’ bodily existence, but 
the article asserts that “he was conceived 
by the Holy Ghost,’ and this implies 
something more than human entity and 
natural conception. Thus the general 
statement of faith of the subapostolic 
church testifies to the Gospel witnesses 
for the virgin birth. 

C. The last witnesses of a secondary 
character are the evidences to be found in 
the writings of the early church apolo- 
gists. Chief among these stands Igna- 
tius, who flourished about 110 a. p. He 
emphasizes the virgin birth directly. The 
apologist, Aristides (125 a. pD.) declares 
for the virgin birth also. Justyn Martyr, 


74 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


Tertullian, and Origen affirm this item 
to be common to the faith of the church, 
and they do not oppose it. 

Lobstein, with others, admits the 
weight of apostolic and subapostolic 
writings to favor the belief that the 
early Christians had in the virgin birth, 
but he dismisses the thought that we are 
to accept the article as a fact for faith 
to-day. He insinuates that the age in 
which these writers lived was one where 
the atmosphere was of mere assumption 
of facts rather than an investigation of 
them. The early Fathers are represented 
as readily accepting the Nativity records 
of Matthew and Luke as trustworthy, and 
based all of their own faith and apology 
merely upon these sources which they did 
not question. 

Concerning this stricture, we can say 
that we believe we possess as ample 
grounds for the acceptance of the Nativ- 
ity chapters to-day as did the early 
Church Fathers in their day. We do not 
feel that the integrity of the chapters can 
be impeached upon any grounds that the 
opposition has heretofore presented. The 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 75 


early writers had the same criticisms pre- 
ferred against the virgin birth that we 
have heard in our day. They had ready 
access to rich tradition and facts that lay 
outside the Gospel narratives, and oft- 
times they went back of the Gospel 
records to prove the authority of certain 
passages which the Jewish bigots and 
heathen critics slandered. 

The item of the virgin birth is found 
in Gospels whose integrity cannot be im- 
peached. The stories are original with 
the whole of the Gospels in which they 
are found. They cannot be explained 
away as mere fancies born of extraneous 
“influences.” The early church accepted 
the article. The “Rule of Faith” as a gen- 
eral summary of the belief of the early 
Christians shows that the item was ac- 
cepted. The earliest apologists of the 
church believed in the article, in spite of 
the fact that it was criticized in their day, 
even as it has been in later days. They 
surely were led to make some investiga- 
tions of data that lay back of the Gospel 
records in order to answer the critics of | 
the virgin birth, as well as to have sure 


16 THE. CREDIBILITY OF 


grounds for their own faith in it. In the 
light of all the argument that is brought 
to bear upon the question it seems that 
the virgin birth as a scriptural claim has 
the right to be believed in from the stand- 
point of historical credibility. It is agree- 
able to the standard of Christian thinking 
and presents reliable witness for its his- 
torical truth. 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH U7 


VItl 


THE WORTH OF THE ITEM TO THE 
CHURCH 


THE worth of this particular article of 
the creed to the Christian Church can be 
more properly estimated when we con- 
Sider just what worth to the church 
might imply. Our consideration for the 
church must, in the first place, relate to 
something more than the mere radical 
aspect of its thinking and have regard for 
that overwhelming majority of its mem- 
bers whose faith is not given to rational- 
istic tendencies. The Church of Christ 
primarily embraces the common mind, 
the common heart, and the common pur- 
pose of believers everywhere and at all 
times. If the church body consisted only 
of its minor theological group, we would 
see naught but creedal confusion and con- 
tention; if the Christian body waited to 
be moved by negative criticisms, it 
would possess but little power, and make 


78 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


less progress in the fulfillment of its 
divine mission. Laying aside formal 
definitions of the Christian Church, we 
can practically say that it is that body 
of believers who are seeking, both for 
themselves and others, the form and 
power of godliness given through Jesus 
Christ as his person and spirit are re- 
vealed in the New Testament. | 

This practical conception of the church 
will prompt in its ministers a sympathetic | 
attitude toward these peculiar features 
which the Christian body commonly 
credits to Jesus. Especially ought this 
caution to prevail when there is marked 
difference between one’s personal views 
of Jesus and those which the church gen- 
erally holds. This exhortation does not 
insinuate that one should compromise 
with his convictions in these matters, nor _ 
imply a cowardly reticence under all cir- 
cumstances. It does suggest, however, 
that sober judgment should guard against 
the reflection of these critical opinions 
which are ever injurious to the faith of 
many and seldom constructive to that of 
others. 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 79 


The mooted question of “the Christ of 
faith” being related to “the Jesus of his- 
tory” illustrates the point in mind. The 
early German rationalists labored ardu- 
ously to maintain that this relation was 
not vital, and their subsequent apologists 
still attempt to support this position. 
However, the bulk of Christian scholar- 
ship does not incline to this conception, 
and stoutly contends that there would 
have been no “Christ of faith” had there 
been no “Jesus of history”; the two are 
but one and inseparable. Psychology de- 
clares the Christian faith to be a force so 
vital that its creation and perpetuation 
demand something more for an explana- 
tion than the mere “idealization” of a 
Jesus whose life was void of manifest 
supernaturalism. The history of the 
Christian religion seems to support the 
same view. The New Testament plainly 
indicates that the faith of the immediate 
disciples was begotten by an appreciation 
of the unique elements of Jesus’ charac- 
ter. From that day of earliest believers 
until now the portion of the church which 
has favorably modified the history of 


80 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


civilization with an ardent evangelism 
and social reform has likewise identified 
the source of its compelling faith with 
the Jesus of the Gospel records. 

One may hold the view that the Jesus 
of history can be dismissed on the ground 
that he has no significance for the 
Christ of faith and be within his theologi- 
cal right. The sincerity of such persons 
is not questioned, and with them there is 
no quarrel. But let it be remembered 
that this esoteric view is but a personal 
opinion to which the common body of the 
church has not attained. The position 
has certain philosophical implications 
which the Christian body evidently does 
not understand nor cares to receive. The 
theory is hostile to the major character- 
istics of our Lord, and frequently leads 
to indiscriminate pronouncements upon 
them. ‘These utterances, which are oft- 
times needless, cannot but wound the 
faith of those devout Christians who 
seriously feel that no man can lightly 
put asunder any of those unique features 
which God has seemingly joined together 
in the person of Jesus. 


—- 


_——_" 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 81 


Some opponents of the virgin birth 
make a partial concession to this feeling 
of the church by intimating that any and 
all of the miraculous claims for Jesus 
possess a value which is independent of 
their historical fact. The argument is 
that faith in these items as “ideas” will 
contribute just as much to the Christian 
religion as to exercise faith in them as 
facts. With this interpretation of worth, 
some critics remind us that the idea of 
the virgin birth of Jesus has certain value, 
although it is not to be accepted as an 
actual transaction. They insinuate that 
the Nativity chapters have a symbolical 
significance; they add a charm of tender 
beauty to the birth of Jesus and accord 
a glory to childhood. The story is effec- 
tive in that it casts a peculiar joy and 
gladness over the minds of people at each 
suceeding Christmastide. Thus the item 
is credited with a sort of imaginative 
value. 

We can scarcely assent that a faith in 
“ideas” that are false to fact is a suffi- 
cient basis for the real Christian joy and 
service. Psychology and history both 


82 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


deny that such could be. If the “idea” 
of the virgin birth of Jesus does con- 
tribute anything of joy to the world, we 
cannot but feel that a faith in the fact 
of it would supremely modify that glad- 
ness by giving it a deeper assurance. If 
we are to admit that this item has any 
value to the church which accepts it, the 
larger worth of the miracle is to be dis- 
cerned in the terms of credited historical 
fact. 

All scholars opposed to the supernatu- 
ral coneeption do not admit that this 
article of creed has any value for the 
Christian body. To the contrary, many 
of them assert that the alleged miracle 
is a positive handicap to the prestige of 
the church and its evangelical mission. 
A most frank and forceful summary of 
this position is expressed by R. J. Camp- 
bell in his New Theology: “Uike many 
others, I used to take the position that 
acceptance or nonacceptance of the doc- 
trine of the virgin birth was immaterial 
because Christianity was quite independ- 
ent of it; but later reflection has con- 
vinced me that in point of fact it oper- 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 8&3 


ates as a hindrance to spiritual religion 
and a real living faith in Jesus.”* 

Thinkers of this type allude to the bale- 
ful influence which this traditional ar- 
ticle of faith has begotten in the Ma- 
riolatry cultus with all of its related 
superstition and repugnant practices. 
They claim that the retention of the item 
in the Christian creed lowers the family 
conception. It flaunts into the faces of 
would-be converts a miracle which insults 
their intelligence, and thereby prevents 
them from entering into the membership 
of the church. 

In reply to these serious charges it ean 
be said that the fact of and faith in the 
miraculous origin of Jesus does not, of 
itself, cause the extreme views of Mari- 
olatry, virginity, or celibacy any more 
than the self-denial of Jesus caused the 
harsh asceticism of Mantanus or Simon 
Stylites. All of these abnormal tenden- 
cies are the result of warped interpreta- | 
tions of facts incident to the life of Jesus, 
and are not directly chargeable to them. 

We can also question the assertion that 





1 Reprinted by permission of The Macmillan Company. 


84 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


many earnest persons are shut out of 
membership in the Christian Church 
because they might be required to express 
their belief in the virgin birth of its 
Founder. Practically no Christian bodies 
impose this article as a dogmatic shib- 
boleth for membership in their several 
communions. Even if the evangelical 
branches of the church did expressly 
stress this doctrinal requirement for 
entrance in their several fellowships, the 
liberal denominations have doors open 
especially to welcome all who doubt or 
deny the particular or general divine 
characteristics of Jesus. Surely that al- 
leged multitude of earnest people who are 
supposed to be churchless because the 
virgin birth is a portion of the creed 
would find their way into those Christian 
folds where nothing of the sort is re- 
quired. But the fact that the member- 
ship in the liberal communions remains 
static indicates that but few persons 
remain out of the church because of this 
creedal implication...” 

Any reference to that questionable 
number who are kept out of the church 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 85 


at large because of its acceptance of the 
supernatural birth of Jesus causes us to 
reflect upon the various degrees of worth 
which this article might have for the great 
number who have entered the church and 
who constitute its membership. For 
many the miracle magnifies the divine 
power of Jesus. For them all accredited 
miracles which move in a moral direction 
seem to afford an essential and harmon- 
ized revelation of the transcendent and 
immanent nature of God—a revelation 
without which no religion is vigorous or 
vital. The Christian body feels that this 
imperative revelation centers supremely 
in Jesus, and for them, therefore, all mir- 
acles that relate to his person and con- 
duct reinforce the general conception that 
in him and through him are these essen- 
tial attributes of the Divine. The fact 
of the virgin birth strengthens this con- 
viction. Directly as an act, the miracle 
attests the Divine power and purpose over 
and through the natural order ; indirectly 
the miracle presents a Lord whose incom- 
parable life and marvelous resurrection 
are likewise balanced by a signal birth. 


86 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


The attitude taken toward the validity 
of this item also relates to the credited 
authority of the New Testament Scrip- 
tures and to this degree it has certain 
meaning for the church. It is evident that 
the early church found its foundations 
for faith and practice in the New Testa- 
ment, and recognized it as authoritative 
for both. A continuous and wholesome 
regard for these accepted Scriptures has 
ever crowned the church with whatever 
measures of purity and power she may 
have possessed. It is certain that the 
future of the Christian Church will pivot 
primarily upon what the Christian body 
continues to believe in this matter, for 
character and conduct are inseparable 
from creed. 

These implications of scriptural author- 
ity for the welfare of the church suggest 
that the high estimate of scriptural integ- 
rity should never be weakened in the 
thinking of Christian people. This essen- 
tial conviction will not be deepened by the 
negative pronouncements upon the birth 
of Jesus. The critic may purpose to pro- 
ceed no further than to deny this one 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 87 


item and impugn the trustworthiness of 
the Scriptures that declare it; but this 
single criticism will have a double reac- 
tion upon the minds of many Christian 
people should they receive it. When the 
feeling generally obtains that one ac- 
cepted scriptural claim for the unique- 
ness of Jesus can be disposed of, then the 
validity of all claims and Scriptures can 
be looked upon askance. If the sense of 
scriptural authority by any means is 
caused to degenerate into a mere elective 
policy, the tendency will be progressive 
and perilous. With little discrimination 
it will be assumed that if the credited 
portions of Scripture relative to creed 
can be annulled at personal pleasure, 
then a similar attitude can be taken to- 
ward the portions authoritative for con- 
duct should the occasion arise. 

It must be confessed that the doctrinal 
importance of the virgin birth of Jesus 
means much or little to the mind of the 
Christian Church. Without doubt a vast 
number of Christian persons uncon- 
sciously attach a doctrinal worth to the 
item. For these persons the supernatu- 


88 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


ral conception makes provision for the 
sinlessness of Jesus, and the miracle also 
affords a sort of an intellectual rest and 
partial insight into God’s choice of mode 
in effecting the incarnation of Jesus. It 
is felt that the outstanding facts of the 
virgin birth, the incarnation and implied 
perfection are so related to Jesus’ person 
that these facts must have some vital sig- 
nificance for each other. It is certain 
that this view is more traditional than 
scriptural, for it cannot be definitely 
defended or denied by an appeal to scrip- 
tural authority. Nevertheless, the doc- 
trinal conviction of the virgin birth is 
commonly held by many Christian people, 
and those who studiously maintain it con- 
tend that no expedient other than the 
miraculous conception of Jesus can well 
account for the principal doctrines which 
center in him. 

We must yield to all such thinkers their 
theological right to their individual con- 
victions in this matter. But these same 
scholars in turn must permit the same 
freedom of belief on this point to those 
others who differ with them. To impe- 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 89 


rially assert that the cardinal doctrines 
of Jesus are absolutely grounded in his vir- 
gin birth, and that it is a breach of evan- 
gelical faith to doubt it is a dogmatism 
that nothing can be relied upon to prove. 

Such a dogmatism has its apparent 
weaknesses. It strongly tends toward the 
implication that God is limited to one 
indispensable expedient in effecting the 
major distinctions of Jesus’ character, 
and also presumes an infallible knowl- 
edge as to just when and where sin is 
- operative in human nature. The conten- 
tion inclines to the view that sin is some- 
how resident in the physical basis and is 
germinal through natural generation. 
But even those two groups in the church 
which hold this traditional conception 
concerning sin are not in accord with 
each other as to the place and procedure 
involved in securing the perfection of 
Jesus. 

The conservative Protestant group of 
scholars hold that this sinlessness was 
immediately secured in the direct act of 
the miraculous conception. The Roman 
Catholic communion feels that it solves 


90 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


the problem of Jesus’ perfection by the 
improvision of the immaculate concep- 
tion of Mary. It is evident that this sub- 
terfuge provides occasion for the sinless- 
ness of Jesus even before his own con- 
ception. 

There are other thinkers within the 
Christian body who hold a different view 
as to the fact and force of sin in human 
nature. This position indicates that the 
possibility of sin is only germinal to 
moral consciousness through which it 
dominates the physical life. Upon this 
premise it is contended that all sin in 
Jesus was primarily canceled by the in- 
vestment of the divine power within him. 
This investment of divine power could 
reasonably have originated in the moral 
nature of Jesus’ person; it could have 
been post-conceptional, and was not neces- 
sarily conditioned by or upon the physical 
miracle of his birth. 

A casual analysis of each of these the- 
ories will reveal that they differ on the 
points of ethical psychology, and thereby 
vary in their conclusions as to time and 
place where the perfection of Jesus was 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 91 


secured. However, all of them are 
equally agreed in the fact which is funda- 
mental, namely, that the perfect sinless- 
ness of Jesus was essentially conditioned 
by the power of his divine incarnation. 
The manner and moment of this transac- 
tion are of such minor importance and 
debatable assumption that no particular 
dogmatism can be well supported. 

The dogmatic contention for the doc- 
trinal importance of the virgin birth can- 
not be sustained upon historical grounds. 
It is true that the Church Fathers con- 
tended for the doctrinal worth of this item 
as well as for its historical validity. But 
it is also apparent that the Patristic con- 
clusion on this point of Christology, like 
many others, was deduced by certain the- 
ological presuppositions which do not uni- 
formly nor universally obtain in Chris- 
tian thinking of to-day. Any appeal to 
history in this regard must be thorough- 
going and must go back to the immedi- 
ate disciples of Jesus and their records of 
teaching. The appeal to these original 
and authoritative sources for faith most 
surely declares that the virgin birth of 


92 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


Jesus was made no tenet for evangelical 
belief or preaching. To what extent 
a knowledge of Jesus’ birth was common 
to the apostles, and to what degree they 
personally attached a doctrinal import to 
it are matters for speculation. Their 
writings declare for the virgin birth and 
the incarnation of Jesus; but nowhere is 
there an intimation that either fact con- 
ditioned the other. 

No dogmatic importance of the miracu- 
lous birth of Jesus can be conclusively 
drawn by an exegetical procedure. We 
must bear in mind that beyond the Nativy- 
ity chapters there is no reference to the 
virgin birth in all of the New Testament. 
Even the most conservative scholars make 
this admission, and present reasonable 
apologies for this marked silence. If this 
body of the Scriptures contains no single 
allusion to the item which is deemed 
forceful enough to constitute a mere 
statement of fact for it, it is evident that 
they contain nothing compelling for its 
doctrinal proof. 

This very silence on the doctrine of 
Jesus’ birth in the major portion of the 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 93 


New Testament, and especially in the 
Epistles, strengthens the statement of the 
fact for it in the Nativity records. The 
silence would indicate that Matthew and 
Luke did not incorporate the story of the 
virgin birth in their respective Gospels 
merely to accommodate a doctrinal pur- 
pose. This inference would of itself sug- 
gest that we proceed cautiously in forcing 
any dogmatic interpretations from the 
Nativity scriptures. If the fact of Jesus’ 
unique birth had a direct bearing upon 
the incarnation and sinlessness of his 
person, we feel sure that Matthew and 
Luke, who are responsible for the Nativ- 
ity records and devote two chapters each 
of their Gospels to it, would have cer- 
tainly attached some doctrinal impor- 
tance to the act if they felt that it pos- 
sessed any. But they say nothing which 
is convincing on this point. 

-The attempt is sometimes made to show 
that Matthew and Luke do offer data in 
their birth chapters which supports a doc- 
trinal deduction. The passages most 
frequently quoted in this connection read 
as follows—Matt. 1. 20-21: “Joseph, thou 


94 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


son of David, fear not to take unto thee 
Mary thy wife: for that which is con- 
ceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And 
she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt 
call his name JESUS, for he shall save 
his people from their sins.” Luke 1. 35: 
“The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, 
and the power of the Highest shall over- 
shadow thee: wherefore also that holy 
thing which shall be born of thee shall be 
called the Sen of God.” These words can 
be soberly construed as declarations for 
Jesus’ unique birth and prophetic utter- 
ances concerning the nature of his per- 
son and the titles to be ascribed to him. 
They in no wise declare that these divine 
attributes are to be posited by the miracle 
of the birth. | 
This conception is fairly reinforced 
when we consider the approximate lan- 
guage which Luke (1. 15) employs in 
describing the annunciation to Zacharias 
relative to John. John’s birth involved 
the renewal of the reproductive processes 
of his parents, and to that extent was 
miraculous. John is filled with the Holy 
Ghost, even from his mother’s womb; he 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 95 


shall be called a certain name and is or- 
dained to a certain office. It is not 
claimed that the birth or character of 
John is analogous to that of Jesus, and 
none have ever contended that John’s 
peculiar character was due to the direct 
act of his conception. But the similarity 
of Luke’s expressions in both of these 
instances would indicate that the sinless- 
ness and incarnation of Jesus did not rest 
primarily upon the physical miracle of his 
birth. The texts in both cases are pro- 
phetic of future ascriptions rather than 
the predications of their causes. 

It is, therefore, upon the force of tradi- 
tion that the church of to-day invests the 
miracle of Jesus’ birth with direct mean- 
ing for the major features of his experi- 
ence. This doctrinal significance rests 
fundamentally upon a personal assump- 
tion which is the privilege of each be- 
liever. But a dogmatism in this one 
direction cannot rely upon history nor 
Scripture to enforce its claim; much less 
does the doctrinal acceptance of this item 
constitute a valid test for evangelical 
faith. 


96 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


If the inquiry is raised as to what value 
this miracle has if it does not necessarily 
involve a doctrinal aspect, it can be said 
that the miraculous birth might have a 
direct worth independent of doctrinal 
implications. In all of our discussion of 
this item we have viewed the whole matter 
in the light of what it might or might not 
mean to us for doctrine. We seldom 
reflect upon the thought that this miracle 
could have been of tremendous import to 
Mary, the mother of Jesus, and through 
her react upon the physical nature of the 
child which she, as the most favored of 
women, should bear. 

We must bear in mind that the Jewish 
race and religion ever sought signs for the 
confirmation of Divine promise. For that 
matter all men exercise religious faith 
and trust upon some conditional evi- 
dences, although the prescribed tests 
might vary. If this tendency is native to 
us in the trusts of our common ways, to 
what extent would not the Jewish Joseph 
and Mary be exercised by the divine 
promise that the one Mary should mother 
would be the Son of God? To believe that 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 97 


promise which related them to the 
supreme event of the world would almost 
of itself demand some supreme attesta- 
tion. We do know that Joseph, in his dis- 
turbed mind, needed some assurance rela- 
tive to the unique character of the Son 
that his espoused wife should bear ( Matt. 
1. 18,19). Likewise Mary was not per- 
suaded, even by the annunciation, that 
she could possibly be the highest favored 
among women (Luke 1. 34, 35). We feel 
that some outstanding sign would be of 
essential worth to these who were to be 
so closely related to the life of the incom- 
parable Son. 

It is not too much to think that the 
supernatural conception served this pur- 
pose. We know that this was an indis- 
putable evidence to Mary (Luke 1. 49) 
concerning the extraordinary nature of 
her child. From the birth of Jesus, and 
throughout all of his life, she seemed to 
sense his unique nature far beyond all 
others (Luke 2. 19; John 2. 3, 5; Luke 
2.51). It would seem that the mother of 
Jesus had no more evidence than others 
whereby to interpret these peculiar 


98 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


powers of her Son unless the witness was 
immediate to her knowledge of the mir- 
acle attached to his birth. Likewise, it 
may have been the consciousness of this 
wondrous event which saved her from 
despair at the cross (John 19. 25, 26), 
and led her, although a devout Jewess 
{Luke 2. 22 and 39, 41), into the earliest 
group that expected to be so baptized 
with his spirit that they. should be wit- 
nesses for him (Acts 1. 14). 

The physical miracle of the conception 
of Jesus would not only be an immediate 
attestation to Mary concerning the re- 
markable promise of the Son, but such 
an assurance would guard against the 
prejudices and indiscreet approaches of 
Joseph (Matt. 1. 24, 25). The high and 
holy confidence which was caused by the 
miracle upon Mary and reflected in “The 
Magnificat” (Luke 1. 46, 55) could not 
do otherwise than exercise a profound 
reaction upon the child during the pre- 
natal days. Such positive influences 
would produce the highest physical basis 
for the Christ-child, which is equally as © 
essential to real incarnation as the per- 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 99 


fection of the divine power that was to 
come upon him. 

_ It is thus possible to look upon the vir- 
gin birth as a single and direct act of the 
Holy Spirit whereby a miracle was 
wrought upon Mary, the result of which 
was the human child Jesus. This is in 
accord with the chapters that tell us all 
that we do know about the matter in this 
regard. Both Matthew and Luke make 
the miracle amount to no more than a 
witness, that an extraordinary child 
should be born who should be called the 
Son of the Most High. Each author 
closes his Nativity record with the story 
of the birth of the Child destined to be 
wonderful and to show forth the salvation 
of God. Nothing in either record pic- 
tures the child as extraordinary, except 
from the standpoint of the manner of his 
birth, and the exalted mission that he was 
to fulfill. The intimation of these writ- 
ers is that power to further degrees is to 
come upon the child, and the references 
in Luke 2. 40 and 2. 52 would indicate 
that the mysteries of the incarnation 
would be culminating in their process, 


100 THE CREDIBILITY OF 


and probably proceed with the unfolding 
of the human powers in postnatal days. 

This is no dogmatism, but it is an 
assumption that seems to accord with the 
very texts incorporated with the Nativity 
chapters themselves and the remaining 
chapters of Matthew and Luke. The 
flight to Egypt, a silence as to any mir- 
acles of Jesus in childhood, the obedience 
in the home, the apparent indifference on 
the part of Jesus’ brethren toward him— 
all of these allusions combine to indicate 
that the incarnation of Jesus was a pro- 
gressive feature of his experience. If we 
say that his incarnation was complete 
and final in the conception, we are com- 
pelled to admit that the peculiar manifes- 
tations of it were modified by the passing 
of his years. Neither of these views of 
the incarnation would detract from the 
fact of its fullness; whether it be an 
instantaneous or a progressive process,. 
it could reach completeness. 

If we care to take the ground that the 
incarnation of Jesus as such was a pro- 
gressive feature of his experience, we can 
account for the more or less normal rela- 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 101 


tions of his childhood life, and the silence 
concerning it that is marked until he is 
some twelve years of age. The fact that 
the divine power was culminating from 
birth will explain those progressive mani- 
festations of unique power and self-con- 
sciousness that characterize the events of 
Jesus’ career. The precocity revealed at 
the Temple, the miracle at Cana, the 
Messianic consciousness at the baptism, 
the subsequent mighty works of his later 
ministry—all of these features would sug- 
gest that the incarnation of Jesus was 
a progressive experience that culminated 
in the resurrection, and continued to re- 
veal itself in the further manifestations 
of his Spirit. 

Sober and _ thoughtful scholarship 
affirms that the church may well credit 
the virgin birth of Jesus. The scriptures 
which declare for the item are trust- 
worthy for faith. As a miracle the act 
had vital significance for Mary. The mir- 
acle also corresponds quite favorably with 
that uniqueness which characterized the 
life of Jesus as a whole. Belief in this 
feature of our Lord’s origin can only be 


102. THE CREDIBILITY OF 


reasonably accounted for by the occur- 
rence of the fact of it, and to the Chris- 
tian body which more generally accepts 
the miracle it has special degrees of 
worth. It cannot be said that to doubt 
the item necessarily cancels an evangeli- 
cal faith in the major distinction of Jesus’ 
person. The doctrinal significance of the 
miracle of Jesus’ birth rests primarily 
upon the personal prepossessions, and 
without doubt the larger portion of the 
church continues to hold the traditional 
view in this regard. 

The devout Christian can reverently 
stand with the worshiping congregation 
and repeat without mental reservation 
the creed of the past and present—‘I 
believe in God the Father Almighty, 
Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus 
Christ, his only Son our Lord; who was 
born of the Virgin Mary.” And with 
unfeigned faith we can unite in singing 
at each passing Christmastide the chant 
that is old yet ever new: 


“Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ, 
Thou art the everlasting Son of the 
Father. 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 103 


When thou tookest upon thee to deliver 
man, 

Thou didst humble thyself to be born of 
a Virgin. 

When thou hadst overcome the sharp- 
ness of death, 

Thou didst open the kingdom of heaven 
to all believers. 

Thou sittest at the right hand of God, 
in the glory of God, the Father. 

We believe that thou shalt come to be 
our Judge. 

We therefore pray thee, help thy ser- 
vants, 

Whom thou hast redeemed with thy pre- 
cious blood. 

Make them to be numbered with thy 
saints in glory Everlasting. Amen.” 


Sn 


104. THE CREDIBILITY OF 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Critical Introduction to New Testament 
—“The Synoptics,” Peake. 

Harliest Sources of the New Testament, 
Burkitt. | 

Was Jesus Born at Bethlehem? W. Ram- 
say. 


, Bearings of Recent Discoveries on the 


Trustworthiness of the New Testament, 
W. Ramsay. 

Jesus, the Christ—Historical or Mythi- 
cal, T. J. Thoburn. 

The Quest of the Historical Jesus, Albert 
Schweitzer. 

The Creative Christ, E. S. Drown. 

Fwe Present Day Controversies, Jeffer- 
Son. 

Freedom in the Church, Allen. | 

The Apostles’ Creed for To-day, E. S. 
Drown. 

The Virgin Birth, James Orr. 

The Virgin Birth of Christ, P. Lobstein. 

The Virgin Birth of Jesus, G. H. Box. 


THE VIRGIN BIRTH 105 


“ The Birth and Infancy of Our Lord, 
L. M. Sweet. 
A Critical Examination of the Evidences 
for the Doctrine of the Th Birth, — 
T. J. Thoburn. 
~ The Virgin Birth, Frederic Palmer. 








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